Ransom Drop Read online

“What does that mean—sort of? You either got off, or you didn’t. So, what was it? No, let me guess. You didn’t get off, because that bull dyke in the shower doesn’t know what she’s doing. She couldn’t satisfy a nymphomaniac in heat. She’s bad fucking news. I knew it the minute I laid eyes on her.”

  Victoria held a palm up. “Stop.” She thought for a moment then added with a smile, “Well, I did enjoy the afternoon.”

  “So, now it’s time to party, right?” He finished his Scotch and poured himself another. “Where are all the hot discos? I feel like dancing.”

  “Not before I go to the pharmacy. I need to pick up a few essentials, like deodorant and…stuff.”

  He stared past her, out toward the center of the room.

  “Listen. I’m going to stay here while you get ready. I get bored sitting in my room alone, and I’m all set to party. Get ready and go down to the pharmacy. Dinner’s on me before we go to the disco.” He swung his eyes back on her. “Wear something sexy, tonight. I want to show you off at the disco. Your friend”, he motioned toward the bathroom and back again, “won’t spoil my evening with her sour ass mood, will she? I honestly don’t know what you see in her, anyway. I think you’d be better off with a man. But I know, I know. You’re like the French girl in the movie—experimenting.”

  “Okay, Sigmund Freud. Quit messing with my mind.”

  The bathroom door opened, and Greta came out, toweling her hair. A moment later, she had the hair dryer going. Eventually, she came back into the room in black pants and a gray tank while Victoria finished her shower, dressed, and left for the pharmacy.

  “I know you don’t like me,” Greer said to Greta the moment Victoria left the room.

  “The first impression’s usually the right one.”

  “Okay. So, can we bury the hatchet at least for the evening? I’d like to have a good time and not put up with your bitchy moods.”

  She shrugged and farted. “There’s a kiss for you, Greer,” she said and went to pour herself another whiskey.

  He sprang at her, looped his forearm around her neck, and jerked her halfway off the floor. Strong and muscular, Greta writhed and twisted. No match for his strength, she choked and squirmed under the strength of his steely grip. She sputtered like a dying engine as her body went slack. He let her drop to the floor.

  Geer dragged her across the room into the bathroom, feeling the heated frenzy of the murder boiling his blood. He dumped her in a corner between the toilet and the bathtub and kicked her, breaking her ribs. Not done yet, he crashed the heel of his shoe down on her head and into her face, pulverizing her lifeless body until the wave of rage finally ended.

  The bitch had it coming. Anyone gets in my face like that—mocking me, showing disrespect—that person’s gonna die.

  A while later, Victoria returned to the room. She stopped when she saw him sprawled out on the bed and watching television, alone.

  “Where’s Greta?”

  “We got into a fight,” he said. “I couldn’t help it. You know how moody she is.” He was unusually calm, his voice composed, unruffled now as she put down her package on the bed and listened as he explained to her what had happened.

  “We got into a shouting match. She called me every name in the book and told me how she hated my guts. ‘Men, they’re all alike,’ she said, throwing it back on me. I tried to keep away from her, but she kept coming at me with her claws showing. I stuck fingers in my ears. I turned away. I told her to calm down, relax, to stop spoiling the day.” He shrugged. “What else could I do?”

  “Where is she, Hyde?” Victoria eyed him suspiciously, with the hint of a little fear rising in her voice. “You haven’t done anything to her, have you? I know that temper of yours.”

  “Of course not. I’m trying to be civil here. Give me some credit, will you?” He winced. “She’s gone out. She said she needed time to cool off. She’ll meet you at a place called Vienglatry’s or something in half an hour.”

  “I know the place.”

  “But only if I’m out of the picture. At least that’s what she said?”

  “I’m sorry, Hyde. I need to talk to her…alone.”

  “I’ll give you a ride over there.”

  “Okay. Give me a few minutes. I need to use the bathroom.”

  She started across the room when he sprang off the bed and grabbed her arm.

  “Let’s go. You can use the bathroom downstairs in the lobby.”

  “I don’t want to use the bathroom downstairs in the lobby.”

  She gave him a puzzled look and continued to stare down at his hand locked on her arm. He saw her staring and released his grip.

  “Greta left in a huff. She looked suicidal. No telling what she might do. C’mon, we better go.”

  He ushered her out the door toward the elevator. They went below. The car park attendant wheeled Greer’s beat up sedan around in front of the hotel. A mocking grin spread across his thin, angular face. Greer took the key and insulted him by giving him a tip of one kip. The guy’s face turned sullen. Greer smiled. He cranked the car in gear and drove away, still grinning. They drove onto Semsenthai Road, then doubled back west onto Highway 13, heading north out of the city.

  “Hey, where you going?” Worry edged her voice. “This isn’t the way to Vienglatry’s.”

  “I know,” he said, reaching down under the seat. He brushed aside a piece of piano wire and chose the switchblade, instead. He pulled the car to the side of the road.

  “What’s going on?” she asked, now visibly shaken. He slapped her hard across the face, then clicked the switchblade open and got the blade up to her eyes.

  “I’ll cut the left one out first, then the other one, if you make another sound.”

  Shocked and scared, she was unable to hold the tears back. They rolled down her face and dropped onto her blouse, and the fabric turned dark and damp.

  “I want to go back. Take me back, please.” Her voice quivered. “I thought we were friends. I came here on holiday, and you show up, and now…this. Why the knife? I haven’t done anything wrong.” She whimpered as she stared at the blade inches from her face. It looked sharp, and she wished she hadn’t asked.

  Instead, she asked, “Where are you taking me?”

  “Don’t worry. You’ll find out soon enough. We’ve got a long ride ahead of us,” he said. “I don’t want no trouble. I get any trouble from you, and you die like your lesbian lover back at the hotel. Yeah—she got in my face one time too often—so I killed her.”

  Victoria cried harder. They drove off into the night.

  Chapter Seven

  Seabury stared across the desk at his secretary.

  “Oh, my God. That’s really freaky,” she said.

  Seabury nodded slowly. “Yes, it is freaky. I can’t help it, Mae. Call me single-minded, call me superstitious. I don’t care. I have this eerie feeling that what happened to Dao is about to happen to Victoria Hong.” Seabury looked at her and shook his head. “I saw it yesterday…the red scarf. Victoria Hong was wearing the exact same color Dao had on that night I took her up to Dead Girl Beach.”

  “That happened almost three years ago,” Mae Mongkul said with her usual, bemused smile. She liked to use it during times when she figured he was overreacting or had made a gross miscalculation.

  “What are the chances of that happening, again,” she asked. “Maybe one in five hundred?”

  Mae Mongkul was a small, dark, unattractive Thai woman with a tough-minded spirit, sparked by a compulsive desire to act like everyone’s mother. Obsessively efficient, Mae was single, thirty, educated in Australia, and lived at home with her mother. He’d hired her and never once regretted it. She was far from a raving beauty, but that wasn’t what he wanted. He wanted someone bright and energetic—a secretary with an eye for research. Someone who could compile trade journal information, historical data, or see trends in the antiquities market and get that information back to him in a hurry. She had exceeded those requirements a hundred
fold.

  Swiveling back on her chair, Mae Mongkul counted on her fingers. “Let’s be realistic,” she said. “One, Dao’s death—as devastating as it was—happened almost three years ago. Two, it happened in a remote jungle lagoon, and three, those red silk scarves…” She paused to blow a strand of black hair out of her eyes and continued. “The expensive, red silk scarf—the one you saw Victoria wearing yesterday—is very much in vogue nowadays in Bangkok. If you’re young, single, and as style-conscious as we all know Victoria is, then you’ll wear one. Just because the scarf is the same color as the dress Dao was wearing that night doesn’t mean a thing. I think you’re letting your mind run wild here, Sam, for all the wrong reasons.”

  There was a weary expression in his brown eyes and a growth of dark stubble along the sides of his thick, sturdy jaw. “Tell me, Mae, am I losing it?”

  “You don’t look well. Maybe you should see a doctor.”

  “Maybe,” he said, pointing at the phone on her desk. “If the phone rings during the next half hour, and its Robert Hong calling about Victoria, then the whole thing is starting up all over, again. I have this feeling. I don’t know why or the reason for it, but it’s coming on strong, right now. I’ve had it before but never like this. It feels like somebody’s pulling my insides out.”

  She gave him a motherly look, and Seabury went back inside his office and closed the door. Ten minutes later, Mae paged him on the inter-com at his desk.

  “It’s Robert Hong,” she said and sighed. “He won’t talk to anyone but you.”

  * * * *

  Robert Hong’s voice was barely audible. Seabury had to tell him to speak up so he could hear him. The voice raised an octave higher but still sounded as weak and fragile as the helpless cry of a small, wounded bird.

  “Can you come down? I’m in a shambles. I need your help. It’s Victoria—she’s been kidnapped.”

  “What about the chopper? Can you send it?”

  “It’s airborne, now.”

  “You were pretty sure I’d agree, weren’t you?”

  “I know you, Sam.”

  Seabury laughed a little, easing the strain and tension of the last few minutes. “Okay,” he said. “I’m out the door.” Seabury leaned over the top of his desk. He switched on the intercom and called Mae at her work station in the outer office.

  “Hold my calls. I’ll be out of the office a few days, maybe a week. I’ll keep you posted.” He left the office a few minutes later.

  The elevator took him down below to the lobby. Outside on the sidewalk he signaled a taxi. He looked down past the oncoming crowd to a spot above the street. He saw a measureless patch of gray sky, dark and thick with over-hanging clouds.

  Soon, a taxi pulled up to the curb. Seabury opened the door, leaned his brawny shoulders in through the opening, and sank down into the back seat. The driver took him back to his apartment, where he hurriedly packed a bag. Half an hour later, the driver dropped him off at the airport where Hong’s helicopter waited.

  Chapter Eight

  At a distance of ninety miles, directly south of Bangkok, things were moving fast. In the upscale, seacoast village of Hua Hin on Thailand’s western peninsula, Seabury paced back and forth in the stillness and gloom of Hong’s multi-million dollar mansion. Hong was out in the living room, calling his bank. Seabury was alone in the kitchen, thinking about the phone call he’d had with the kidnapper.

  “Tell Hong one million dollars. The ransom drop’s in Laos, at the Plain of Jars, Jar Site 3. Be there at three o’clock in the afternoon, the day after tomorrow. I better see unmarked bills stuffed into a blue duffle bag, no dye packs. You got that, Seabury?”

  “I do.”

  “I can’t believe it’s really you.”

  Seabury said nothing.

  “Okay. No cops, no games, no bullshit, or the girl dies.”

  The voice that came over the line twenty minutes before was calm, unruffled, and eerily chilling. Not only did Seabury recognize the deep, basso tone, but the trace of a slight speech impediment as well. Could it be? The reality of one of life’s chance encounters. Two boys arguing in a schoolyard. One calls the other a faggot and a wimp. The other boy takes offense. So, they settle it in a dusty field, one-on-one, after school. The image of that horrible day lodged a lump deep in the middle of Seabury’s throat.

  Hyde Greer. He tried hard to swallow the name down, but it wouldn’t budge. He couldn’t believe it. Hyde Greer on the other end of the line—a phantom from his wretched, miserable, painfully depressing past coming back to haunt him and now, a kidnapper to boot.

  Near the window, Seabury heard Hong’s voice trail back from the living room into the kitchen. He was telling somebody at his local bank in Hua Hin to use his Federal Overseas Bank account in Singapore to complete the transaction. “Here,” he said. “Let me give you the number.”

  Seabury checked his watch. Time was ticking by. The palms of his hands were warm and sweaty. Nerves jumbled beneath his skin. He realized he was thinking, worrying too much about Hyde Greer. It wasn’t good. He had to stop, because the thinking and the worrying had always caused the premonitions, just like Victoria’s red scarf and Dao’s red dress. The feelings sprang into his mind. Then, the pictures came. They had to stop. He had to find a way to shut them off.

  Shuddering, he turned back to the window, parted the curtains, and looked outside. Down below, a harsh wind blew in off the Gulf of Thailand. Waves swept across clean, white sand and rolled back into heavy surf. Dark, squiggly lines and huge, wet imprints soaked the beach. The cones of tall, dark trees blew inland. Branches rattled and cracked, and leaves scattered across the ground.

  A blustery day, Seabury thought. No fishing boats or surface ships anywhere in sight.

  Hua Hin was four hours from Bangkok on a narrow, busy, highway full of potholes and hairpin turns. Another eight hours to the southern border crossing over into Malaysia. It was a place where elite billionaires like Robert Hong built homes and entertained millionaire friends with elaborate lawn parties on weekends. Hong’s mansion was large and sprawling. Each room faced the sea—room-after-room of breathtaking views. Out in the other room now, Hong wound down his call to the bank.

  “Thanks,” he said. “Sorry about the rush. It was kind of you to help.”

  He hung up the phone, and Seabury crossed over and stood inside the door to the living room.

  Vanessa Hong and her son Raymond sat inside, huddled together on a canary yellow sofa. They were silhouetted in the living room window behind them, against the gray glare of a late morning storm. Two cups of cold tea sat on placemats near the edge of a glass coffee table in front of them.

  Raymond’s hand came over his mother’s frail, bird-like shoulders, comforting her.

  “Finished,” Hong said to Seabury. He moved out of the shadows of the living room and back into the shadows of the kitchen.

  Hong was dressed in dark slacks and a white cotton shirt. He wore expensive black shoes with tiny tassels. At age fifty-five, his dark hair was shot with gray and thinning. His teeth were too big for his mouth.

  “I won’t be long,” he said to Seabury and went upstairs. He returned a few minutes later with a photo of Victoria and handed it to Seabury.

  He stared at the photo taken of Victoria at a beach party. She was looking up and smiling at the camera, surrounded by a group of her friends. Still the same raven-haired beauty, small and slender with a wide face and narrow jaw. She would have been about nineteen when the picture was taken. Her milk-white skin, a token of the rich and pampered, had been treated for years with special oils. Still the same girl he’d warned about going to Laos. Now, she was gone, and the sadness affected him more than he wanted to admit.

  “Take it. I want you to have it,” Hong said to Seabury. He managed a small, painful smile and added, “I know it’s short notice, but I appreciate you being here. There’s no one I respect or trust more.”

  “It’s okay, Robert. I’m happy you called.”


  Hong looked at him, nervous, weak, and tense. He fought hard not to unravel.

  “She’s at that age,” he said. “She wants to be out on her own…with her friends. God knows I’ve tried over the years to provide security for her, but there’s only so much I can do.”

  “Try not to worry,” Seabury said in a calm, reassuring tone. “She’s alive. You heard. We’ll find her. “

  Hong turned to the side and looked away. He squeezed his small, jittery hands together. The knuckles turned white.

  “I think we better go,” Seabury said. “It’s getting late.”

  He opened a door off the kitchen that led into a cavernous garage outside where a uniformed driver waited.

  * * * *

  They drove in the limo down to Siam Commercial Bank on Petchkasem Road. The driver let them out a half block away and circled, looking for a large space to park. It was overcast and humid. A harsh wind blew up off the street and battered them. On this bleak January day, shops and restaurants were open for business as usual, and for the most part, Thailand was crawling out of a long, dark recession.

  Seabury hurried his brawny body down the street, stride-for-stride with Hong. His brown slacks and the tails of his Navy sports coat flapped at his side in the stiff wind. He cringed and fought off the pictures of Victoria Hong that flickered through his mind at the speed of light.

  The camera kept clicking, picture after picture rolling out before his eyes. Young face. Old look. Victoria screaming, crying out loud. Seabury shuddered. The camera kept going. Hyde Greer. Callused hand. A hard slap. Crack! Ugly, red imprint on soft, white skin.

  Seabury tensed and squirmed but managed to hold off screaming. He didn’t want to frighten Robert Hong.

  Click. Click. Click. The camera lens opened and closed, clicking image after image. Back room. Wooden house. Dark skin. Brown, matted hair. Grotesque. Ugly. A hand reaching down, touching her on the warm, dark mound between her soft, white legs. Victoria Hong.

  “What is it, Sam?” Hong asked, bringing Seabury back.

  “Nothing,” he replied.